As well as comprising ingredients which are indispensable for the washing process, such as surfactants and builder materials, detergents and cleaners usually comprise further constituents which can be summarized under the term washing auxiliaries and include various groups of active ingredients, such as foam regulators, graying inhibitors, bleaches and color transfer inhibitors. Such auxiliaries also include substances which aid the surfactant performance as a result of oxidative degradation of soilings located on the textile or those in the liquor. Analogous statements also apply to cleaners for hard surfaces. For example, inorganic peroxygen compounds, in particular hydrogen peroxide and solid peroxygen compounds which dissolve in water to liberate hydrogen peroxide, such as sodium perborate and sodium carbonate perhydrate, have been used for a long time as oxidizing agents for disinfection and bleaching purposes. The oxidative effect of these substances greatly depends on the temperature in dilute solutions; thus, for example, with H2O2 or sodium perborate in alkaline bleaching liquors, sufficiently rapid bleaching of soiled textiles usually only takes place at temperatures above about 60° C. At lower temperatures it is possible to improve the oxidative effect of the inorganic peroxygen compounds by adding so-called bleach activators, for which numerous proposals, primarily from the classes of substance of N- or O-acyl compounds, for example polyacylated alkylenediamines, in particular tetraacetylethylenediamine, acylated glycolurils, in particular tetraacetylglycoluril, N-acylated hydantoins, hydrazides, triazoles, hydrotriazines, urazoles, diketopiperazines, sulfurylamides and cyanurates, and also carboxylic anhydrides, in particular phthalic anhydride, carboxylic esters, in particular sodium nonanoyloxybenzenesulfonate, sodium isononanoyloxybenzenesulfonate and acylated sugar derivatives, such as pentaacetylglucose, have become known in the literature. The addition of these substances can increase the bleaching action of aqueous peroxide liquors such that even at temperatures below 60° C. essentially the same effects arise as with the peroxide liquor on its own at 95° C.
European patent application EP 0 464 880 discloses bleach-boosting cationic nitriles of the general formula R′R″ R′″ N+—CR1R2—CN X−, in which R1 and R2 are hydrogen or a substituent with at least one carbon atom, R′ is a (C1–C24)-alkyl, -alkenyl or -alkyl ether group or —CR1R2—CN, and R″ and R′″ are each case (C1–C24)-alkyl or hydroxyalkyl group, and the counteranion X− is an organic sulfonate, an organic sulfate or a carboxylate.
International patent application WO 98/23719 discloses that compounds of the general formula R1R2R3N+CH2CN X−, in which R1, R2 and R3, are independently alkyl, alkenyl or aryl group having 1 to 18 carbon atoms, where the groups R2 and R3 may also be part of a heterocycle including the N atom and optionally containing further heteroatoms, and X− is a charge-balancing anion, can be used as activators for, in particular, inorganic peroxygen compounds in aqueous dishwashing solutions. This provides an improvement of the oxidative and bleaching effect in particular of inorganic peroxygen compounds at low temperatures below 80° C., in particular in the temperature range from about 15° C. to 55° C. At least some of these cationic nitriles, however, are produced in the course of their production in liquid form, for example as in particular aqueous solution, and can only be converted from these into the pure solid with considerable losses, meaning that their use in solid, for example particulate, compositions presents difficulties. In addition, cationic nitriles, particularly in combination with further ingredients of detergents and cleaners, are normally not very storage-stable and in particular sensitive to moisture.
International patent application WO 00/50556 discloses the production of solid preparations which comprise cationic nitrile and solid carrier material by a vacuum steam-drying method in a mixer. Although this method produces bleach activator granules, attempts are nevertheless made to develop an alternative production method which is as simple as possible.